All recessions bring redundancies, and opportunities, including aged care industry
Aged care can be a win-win deal for both willing workers and the elderly, according to Russell Luckock, business contributor on Sky news in the UK . On 12 January he reported that UK Seniors wanted to be able to stay in their own hones for as long as possible.
“Local authorities also take the view that where a person can be kept in their own home with support services in attendance, this is more cost effective that placing the elderly and sick in care.
He reported on the experiences of “one of the major employers of home care services, chief executive, Mark Hales, of Birmingham based Claimar Care.
The company employs some 6,000 men and women, and is looking to recruit another 1,500 during the next 12 months. A considerable percentage of the work is on flexitime, with the average being about 25 hours a week. One of the additional benefits of this type of work, is that there is no set retirement age. He has staff aged over 70, very happy in their jobs, with no thought of giving up.
Staff, depending on qualifications, work in the home, ensuring, for instance, that the correct medicines are taken at the right time, and help in ensuring that an acceptable quality of life is maintained. They carry out a wide variety of tasks, no two cases being exactly the same.
Some of the requirements need the services of qualified nurses, which the company also employs. Most of the bills are picked up by local authorities depending on the financial circumstances of the client.
“It is very obvious that the scope for expansion in this area of service is almost unlimited. As we live longer, some of us are going to need more assistance. However, that we should be able to spend our remaining life span in familiar surroundings seems to be highly desirable.
“From the point of view of a career in helping the aged, the one obvious benefit is that the possibility of redundancy would be fairly remote. No government would see its old folk abandoned from the point of view of care.”